Firebomber Publications Blog

Wildfire News Of The Day (the Firebomber Publications blog) provides comprehensive international wildfire news. Subscribers include over 10,000 personnel from fire agencies, contractors, and government entities on five continents. "BEST NEWSLETTER I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY 32 YEARS IN THE FIRE SERVICE" - San Diego Fire Department Chief Brian Fennessy.

Saturday, February 02, 2013

WILDFIRE NEWS OF THE DAY - 020213

Wildfire NOTD subscriber Tony Morris, Communications
Director at Southern California-based Wildfire Research Network, passed along information on a crisis at the state
wildland firefighting agency, CAL FIRE, involving the withholding of $3.6
million from the state's general fund contrary to accepted accounting
practices, with comments by Wildfire NOTD subscriber Janet Upton, Deputy
Director of Communications, at CAL FIRE (1). Gun
activists appear to have derailed legislation in the Utah Senate that would
have restricted target shooting linked to several major wildfires in that state
last year (2); and with the Oklahoma Climatological Survey pronouncing a
shortfall in winter precipitation statewide, fire officials worry about the
impact on wildfire season (3). The International Association of WildlandFire sent along a reminder about their upcoming 4th Fire
Behavior and Fuels Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina (4). Florida
Forest Service expected a wildfire on the grounds of Camp Blanding
Joint Training Center to grow to 700 acres when backburning operations are
completed (5); while Hillsborough County Fire Rescue battled a 30-acre blaze
near a horse farm (6). Following a year in which three wildfires burned over
3,000 acres on Kauai, the Hawaiian Department of Land and Natural Resources has
been ordered to restore forest land which had been overrun by non-native
species (7); and the last of seven Canadians convicted of illegally dumping
pallets which sparked a wildfire north of Westsyde, British Columbia,
have been fined (8). Costa Rica has launched its "A Summer Without
Wildfires" campaign to reduce the incidence of wildfires after a
year which saw more than 34,715 acres burn nationwide (9); while the
Caribbean nation of Trinidad & Tobago is concerned about the loss of
wildlife attributed, in part, to wildfire activity (10). A bushfire in the
African nation of Nigeria did considerable damage to a cement factory outside
of Abeokuta (11). Fire crews and aircraft in Victoria, Australia, struggled to
complete containment lines around a 5,700-hectare bushfire outside of
Harrietville (12); while Australia’s two on-farm chemical waste programs are
assisting farmers cleaning up the mess left by bushfires in Victoria and New
South Wales (13). Churchgoers in New South Wales are providing support to
bushfire survivors in Coonabarabran, where 51 homes were destroyed (14); but
the NSW Premier slammed the federal government's decision not to fund the Bushfire
Cooperative Research Centre for the 2013/14 financial year (15). And finally,
firefighters in Northern Indiana face a hairy situation: growing mustaches to
benefit the Hoosier Burn Camp and the Firefighter Cancer Support Network!